As it is generally known, resource scheduling tools, such as electronic calendaring systems, are widely used in corporate environments to schedule meetings with colleagues. Existing systems are capable of automatically checking the electronic calendars of team members for open time slots, proposing alternative meeting times, scheduling meeting resources, and notifying/reminding participants of meetings by electronic mail (“e-mail”).
A shortcoming of existing systems arises when there is competition for a fixed set of meeting resources, such as conference rooms, presentation equipment, and/or other shared meeting resources. In such circumstances, users will sometimes make accommodations to other users based on the other users' needs. For example, a user may need to reserve a conference room for a meeting for a specific time on a specific day (e.g. due to participant scheduling constraints), and in a specific facility having only three conference rooms: Room A, Room B, and Room C. When the user checks the availabilities of Room A, Room B, and Room C, he or she sees that each room has already been reserved for the specific day and time that is required for the meeting. Accordingly, in order to reserve one of the rooms, the currently scheduling user must contact each of the other users that have previously reserved conference rooms in order to find out if they would be willing to give up their reservation to accommodate the scheduling user's needs. If the currently scheduling user finds out that one of the previously reserving users no longer needs their reservation, or if one of the previously reserving users is willing and able to reschedule their meeting, then the reserved room can be freed up so that the currently scheduling user can reserve it for the new meeting at the necessary date and time.
As the pool of users sharing meeting resources grows, the competition for resources increases, thus making it more difficult to accommodate the needs of all users, and the quantity of personal negotiations for resources must increase. In many situations, it is the same users who will either cancel or reschedule their reservations at the request of other users. This flexible behavior on the part of some users may not be easily noticed by other users based upon the few personal interactions they typically have with such users, especially if not all interactions result in the freeing up of a reserved room or resource.
In existing systems, use patterns indicating which user might be the most accommodating individual with regard to rescheduling or giving up their existing resource reservations go unobserved and unutilized. As a result, users must randomly query users with resource reservations until they find someone who will accommodate them, or until they exhaust all available options. This lengthy process can be time consuming and tedious, without necessarily yielding any helpful results. It would therefore be desirable to have a new system that effectively addresses this waste of time and energy on the part of resource scheduling users in situations where there is significant competition for schedulable resources.